Create Superior Customer Experiences
This week, I’m stepping away from last week’s column on increasing average order value in your call center to share a personal experience from which all multichannel marketers can learn. Next week, I’ll be back with part two of that series. I felt this was topic was so fresh in my mind that it would be worth saving the second part until next week.
I enjoy mixing things up in my weekly column; after all, I need to keep it fresh more than 50 times a year. As a teacher of direct marketing, I take my marketing cues from many sources. So when I see something in the world of noncatalog marketing that inspires me — something I feel can offer some good takeaway lessons — I feel obligated to share it with you.
That said, this week’s article looks at creating a totally unique customer experience that drives customer loyalty beyond what we normally think of in our industry.
Last week I got home from a Western Caribbean cruise. Normally I hate cruises. I know some people love them, but to me I feel like a rat trapped in a maze. That’s until I ran into a company called Cloud 9 Adventures and the Jam Cruise!
Imagine if you will a medium-sized cruise ship filled with about 2,000 passengers; 20 or so of the best funk, jam and jazz bands on the planet; and an extra half-dozen or so “roving” musicians. All playing day and night on a five-night cruise. Welcome to the Jam Cruise (www.jamcruise.com), an innovation in theme-based cruises that brings together travel and entertainment in one package. (Of course, it didn’t hurt that I’m a huge music buff.)
From a marketing perspective, however, in just five years Cloud 9 has developed a phenomenon that sells out months in advance. Its many advanced bookings are a testament to the positive customer experience from which it gains remarkable degrees of loyalty and customer advocacy.
Jim Gilbert has had a storied career in direct and digital marketing resulting in a burning desire to tell stories that educate, inform, and inspire marketers to new heights of success.
After years of marketing consulting, Jim decided it was time to “put his money where his mouth was" and build his own e-commerce company, Premo Natural Products, with its flagship product, Premo Guard Bed Bug & Mite Sprays. Premo in its second year is poised to eclipse 100 percent growth.
Jim has been writing for Target Marketing Group since 2006, first on the pages of Catalog Success Magazine, then as the first blogger for its online division. Jim continues to write for Total Retail.
Along the way, Jim has led the Florida Direct Marketing Association as their Marketing Chair and then three-term President, been an Adjunct Professor of Direct and Digital marketing for Miami International University, and created a lecture series, “The 9 Immutable Laws of Social Media Marketing,” which he has presented across the country at conferences and universities.
